Robert Courts is a loan officer with Advantage Lending, LLC, a founding member of Shop Local Raleigh and a passionate advocate for Raleigh’s small, local businesses through his work at Your Back Yard Raleigh. With over two decades of community involvement, Robert has served for the last eight years on the board of Raleigh Crime Stoppers and currently serves on the Raleigh Human Relations Commission. He is dedicated to fostering connections between local government, businesses, and residents to strengthen Raleigh’s vibrant community.
Robert spoke to City Council on March 11, 2025:
Honorable Mayor and esteemed City Council:
I stand before you today on behalf of Raleigh’s firefighters, urging you to approve funding for the Firefighter Separation Allowance. These brave men and women risk their lives daily to protect us, yet they do not receive the same retirement benefits as Raleigh’s other public safety heroes, our police officers.
Yesterday, Raleigh’s fire chief shared staggering facts—recruitment struggles, compensation concerns, and, most troubling, firefighter mortality rates. While recruitment is a major focus, retaining experienced firefighters must be our priority.
They are the backbone of the department—the leaders and mentors who keep it strong. Without them, we lose not only their skill and experience but also their ability to train and inspire the next generation of firefighters.
As Raleigh grows, so do the burdens on our firefighters. Every new neighborhood annexed, every high-rise added to our skyline increases the complexity and danger of their work. Fighting fires in a single-story home is vastly different from responding to emergencies in a 30-story building. With each expansion, we ask our firefighters to take on more, yet we have not expanded the benefits needed to retain them.
Approving this allowance ensures our firefighters can retire with dignity, easing the financial burden between retirement and age 62. Without it, we risk losing more seasoned professionals, further weakening a department already struggling with vacancies—44 today, more than 60 by fall.
This isn’t just a firefighter issue; it’s a public safety issue. A short-staffed, overstressed department cannot fully protect our growing city. Without experienced personnel, response times increase, training suffers, and the safety of both firefighters and citizens is put at risk.
Providing this allowance will help retain talent, attract recruits, and ensure our fire department remains strong, capable, and ready to meet the challenges ahead.
Raleigh is thriving, and we owe much of that to those who protect it. I urge you to support our firefighters as they have always supported us.
Thank you.
MORE INFO & Contact the City Council here – From LOCAL 548
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